The best way to improve your writing is to increase your reading. You have to love to read before you become a truly good writer.

Disagree. Reading is not the same as writing. Reading involves recognition, whereas writing involves mostly "reproduction". One cannot reproduce sometimes, even things he has perfectly memorized. For example, one can easily distinguish between British and American accent, but often cannot produce both.

I disagree with this disagreement. I submit that writing is simply an extension of reading. And your example about accents is inapplicable because speech is a very different process than thought. Reading and writing occur entirely in our minds. The paper is just recording that process.

Reading a book about writing may be useful, and I can see why an engineer would be inclined to do so (since they learn everything mechanically). However, I am absolutely certain that the best way to improve your prose is to read, enjoy, and reflect upon the prose of others. Don't set out to "learn" how to write better; set out to experience great writing.

The best way to improve your writing is to increase your reading. You have to love to read before you become a truly good writer.

Disagree. Reading is not the same as writing. Reading involves recognition, whereas writing involves mostly "reproduction". One cannot reproduce sometimes, even things he has perfectly memorized. For example, one can easily distinguish between British and American accent, but often cannot produce both.

I disagree with this disagreement. I submit that writing is simply an extension of reading. And your example about accents is inapplicable because speech is a very different process than thought. Reading and writing occur entirely in our minds. The paper is just recording that process.

Reading a book about writing may be useful, and I can see why an engineer would be inclined to do so (since they learn everything mechanically). However, I am absolutely certain that the best way to improve your prose is to read, enjoy, and reflect upon the prose of others. Don't set out to "learn" how to write better; set out to experience great writing.

Read more and practice writing. Transcribing what you read can also help. You got in with your personal statement, and (if they read it) your writing sample. The admissions committee thinks your writing is competative with your classmates. I still think you may be better at it than you think.

The best way to improve your writing is to increase your reading. You have to love to read before you become a truly good writer.

Disagree. Reading is not the same as writing. Reading involves recognition, whereas writing involves mostly "reproduction". One cannot reproduce sometimes, even things he has perfectly memorized. For example, one can easily distinguish between British and American accent, but often cannot produce both.

I disagree with this disagreement. I submit that writing is simply an extension of reading. And your example about accents is inapplicable because speech is a very different process than thought. Reading and writing occur entirely in our minds. The paper is just recording that process.

Reading a book about writing may be useful, and I can see why an engineer would be inclined to do so (since they learn everything mechanically). However, I am absolutely certain that the best way to improve your prose is to read, enjoy, and reflect upon the prose of others. Don't set out to "learn" how to write better; set out to experience great writing.

Garner is a big proponent of simplifying legal writing and making it clearer and more readable. He gives you plenty of exercises to try out yourself, and points out a lot of common errors that law students and lawyers make. I've always thought legal writing favored engineering types anyway, since it is very formulaic and can be broken down into pretty discrete chunks that make it easier to learn.

Writing is not the same as reading, but reading does help, especially if you set out to read with the express purpose to improve your writing.

What I often do -- I'm not a native speaker, so my English could use some improvement -- is read something like The Economist and underline those word uses and turns of phrase that sound good or express a concept very concisely, which, while I do recognize them, are not part of my active vocabulary.

If you do this, you can get more out of it by going over the underlined phrases again, perhaps copying them into a notebook, but it may not even be necessary; just reading well-written material and paying attention to what it is that makes it well written can improve your own writing.

My professor told me that too. My writing has never been terrible, but he told me i needed to advance my vocab and i should read. I hated reading for leisure, but now i love it as long as its a good book. It has enhanced my vocab too bcause the words used u can usually define ust from the sentence of paragraph used, therefore, making you able to use them in your own writing